THE PEOPLE.
the waist-string. The men are less particular about wearing a turban than in the south and the women follow the Tamil fashion of dispensing with the tight-fitting bodice.
The prevailing colour of the women's cloths is white, with a very narrow red or blue border. Round about Rázám, however, where coloured cloths are woven, white is less universal. These white garments are hardly ever clean and are unpleasantly discoloured with the turmeric which is so commonly and lavishly used. This powder is not only used as an aid to beauty, as in the south, but is supposed to prevent skin diseases; and even tiny children and grown men rub it on their bodies. In Pálkonda and Párvatípur the Kalinga Kómati women mix it with kunkumam powder when they employ it as a cosmetic, and their faces are consequently often of a comical scarlet hue.
The men do not usually shave their heads, as in the Tamil country, but leave their hair to grow quite long (in which case it requires a metal tiga to keep it out of the eyes and is often coquettishly ornamented with a flower or two) or cut it fairly short all round — somewhat after the European fashion.
All the lower castes — men, women and children — wear necklaces of beads made of real or sham coral or of bits of coral stuck together with lac. They are imported from Bombay and Nellore and are on sale in every bazaar. Both men and women are very fond of ear-rings made of a bit of brass (sometimes gold) wire, curled round and round to symbolize a snake and with one end flattened out and pointed to represent its head. Next to these and the ever-present coral necklets, the most noticeable forms of jewellery are the bangles of yellow lac studded with bits of looking-glas ; the circular brass ring suspended from the central cartilage of the nose; the silver anklets, made either in the form of chains or curved so as not to chafe the ankle-bone; the waist-belts of the men, formed of little chased plaques hinged together; the gold bangle, a wedding-present from their fathers-in-law, worn by men of the upper classes on their left wrists; and the very elaborate gold jewellery displayed by the Gavara and Kalinga Kómati women, especially on the Párvatípur side. This last comprises beautifully wrought necklaces formed of strings of golden paddy-grains cunningly linked, rows of gold coins old and rare enough to make a numismatist's mouth water, and most elaborate jewelled nose-studs, often an inch wide and almost meeting across the point of the nose.
In the Agency, the dress of the masses is even commoner and coarser than on the plains. The usual wear is the coarse dupati
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